Demian Maia Is No Stranger To Pulling Off A Upset

“I have prepared for this situation before. In 2005 I was fighting the World Cup of Jiu Jitsu and I was going to fight the best [BJJ] fighter of the world in that time. And I already had a loss to him. I was thinking, ‘He was good standing, he was good from the top, from the bottom – how am I going to win?’…But I just came there, I kept very concentrated and I ended up world champion in that year. I beat the guy [who] was voted in 2004 and 2005 the best jujitsu fighter in the world.”

Maia says he’s focused on wrestling in his training camp for Anderson Silva. He knows he’s not going to beat Silva by trading strikes with him, so he needs to get Anderson to the ground where he’ll have the advantage with his jiu-jitsu. It’s easy to point to the recent Dan Miller fight where Maia struggled taking Miller down, but don’t forget he was able to get US Olympic wrestling team alternate Chael Sonnen there and submit him. Anderson Silva is great at a lot of things, but he’s not impossible to take down. I’m not saying Maia will win, but I think he has a somewhat decent chance at pulling off the upset.